Facebook under fire after man live streams himself killing daughter

A man has live-streamed himself killing his 11-month-old daughter on Facebook in the latest example of the popular social media platform being used to broadcast disturbing incidents in real time.

The brutal attack has further called into question the social media giant’s ability to monitor violent content, following a string of occasions where people have been sharing assaults, murders and suicides with millions of others users.

Thai father Wuttisan Wongtalay, 21, streamed the death of his daughter Natalee in a four-minute live video on Monday night, the Phuket Gazette reports. The confronting footage was seen by more than 370,000 users and remained accessible on the site for 24 hours before it was taken down.

Police captain Jullaus Suvannin said the video showed the baby screaming before eventually going quiet but urged people not to share the "disturbing" clip. Wongtalay’s body was also found at the scene but his suicide was not broadcast on Facebook, he said.

The video was subsequently uploaded to YouTube by other viewers but was removed from that platform within 15 minutes.

In a statement, Facebook said: "This is an appalling incident and our hearts go out to the family of the victim. There is absolutely no place for acts of this kind on Facebook and the footage has now been removed."

However, the incident comes just a week after Cleveland man Steve Stephens posted a video to Facebook of himself killing 74-year-old Robert Godwin in the US. The video was seen millions of times and posted elsewhere before being removed.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Getty.

These incidents are the latest putting pressure on Facebook to censor content being live-streamed on the platform since it introduced the feature a year ago.

Last year, Antonio Perkins was shot and killed in a drive-by attack in Chicago while he was live-streaming himself drinking with friends. The video was watched hundreds of thousands of times within a matter of hours, Fortune.com reports.

Philando Castile of Minneapolis was shot by police during a routine roadside stop last July. His girlfriend then live-streamed the aftermath of his death on Facebook.

The feature has also been used to broadcast suicides. This month, a man from India reportedly live-streamed his suicide, Times of India reports.

This follows another incident in January, when a 12-year-old girl reportedly streamed her own suicide on video app Live.me, which showed her tying a rope around a tree and hanging herself. The clip was reportedly uploaded to Facebook and remained accessible for more than two weeks after the incident.

That same month, a 14-year-old girl from Florida broadcast her suicide using a scarf to hang herself on Facebook Live. Viewers watching the stream reportedly pleaded with her to rethink her decision while others egged her on over the two-hour ordeal, Washington Post reports.

There has also been reports of people using the feature to broadcast assaults. In January, four men and a woman from Chicago live-streamed their attack on a young disabled man, who they bound, gagged and cut with a knife, Daily News reports. The stream reportedly had more than 16,000 viewers simultaneously watching the live broadcast, some oh whom posted comments, which the attackers responded to on the stream.

Last month, several teenage boys in Chicago sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl while streaming the attack on Facebook Live. After she was reported missing, her mother reportedly came across the video and showed screen grabs to police, CNN reports. At least 40 people were watching the stream, but none of them reported it, police said.

The string of events has prompted the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to address growing concerns about the platform's ability to regulate violent content on the platform at the company’s annual conference for software developers.

While Facebook has started to use artificial intelligence software to detect prohibited content, he said it was still a few years away from being able to use this to automatically filter such content from appearing on the platform.

Talking to USA TODAY, Zuckerberg admitted the site had a "responsibility" to "continue to get better at making sure we are not a tool for spreading" videos of violent acts.

"If someone's getting hurt, you want to be able to identify what's going to happen and help the right people intervene sooner and I view that as our responsibility," he said.

Facebook currently has teams of content moderators trained to remove content that violates the company’s policies.

In a recent statement, the company said it had "a lot of work" to do, adding "we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening".

"We know we need to do better," it read.

Facebook also pledged to find ways to improve how users can report violent content which is not allowed by the site, unless it is in the public interest.

"We are reviewing our reporting flows to be sure people can report videos and other material that violates our standards as easily and quickly as possible."

"In addition to improving our reporting flows, we are constantly exploring ways that new technologies can help us make sure Facebook is a safe environment. We prioritise reports with serious safety implications for our community, and are working on making that review process go even faster."

Facebook Australia did not respond to 9Honey's request for comment.

*Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.